Air Canada business class awards between North America and Australia are wide open most of the time June through October. You’ll find a majority of dates have availability for four passengers or more flying Vancouver – Sydney. When I wrote about Air Canada making seats available a month ago this was only through Labor Day but now the seats are even open in throughout October.
Here’s a look at July-August availability for (4) passengers, whenever the United.com calendar shows seats at 99,000 miles that means business class saver on Air Canada is open:
These are bookable using miles in any Star Alliance program, for instance United miles. They’re also bookable – often for fewer miles – using Air Canada Aeroplan, which is a transfer partner of Chase, Capital One, American Express and Bilt.
- For instance while their ‘saver’ price is 85,000 miles (compared to United charging 99,000) I’m seeing several days where just the Vancouver – Sydney flight prices out for 79,100 miles.
- If you book a business flex award for more miles you can access Air Canada’s Signature Suite in Vancouver.
- If you book with Air Canada Aeroplan you can already connect not just to get to Vancouver (as you could with other Star Alliance programs, flying Air Canada or United) but also beyond Sydney flying with their partner Virgin Australia. United will be partnering with Virgin Australia, too, but that isn’t live yet.
I’ve got several Australia trips booked to visit my family and expect to be able to do so this year. And they’ve got trips booked out of the country as well.
(HT: Straight to the Points)
Unlimited award availability to a country almost no one can travel to.
Really wish they were open to tourists. I have business AAward seats to/from for the Australian Open and award hotel room for 2 weeks but it doesn’t look like I will be allowed in.
Don’t want to end up like Novisa Deportovic.
Is booking with ANA RT a reasonable option miles-wise?
Good award value on seats up front to Oz! How exciting! Oh, that’s right, the country’s been locked down for many moons. I guess it’s getting tricky to find things to write about these days when travel is just a bad word to many of us. Spending thousands of miles and/or dollars to have a mask on my face for endless hours … it just ain’t worth it. One Nazi FA and you’re toast. How about cruises? You’re under the control of people who may or may not know what they’re doing … they may lock you in your cabin for 4 days of your 5-day cruise. They may tell you they don’t know why, they can’t produce anything that tells them to do it, they’re just doing it. And the two big guys guarding your door? I wouldn’t be taking a chance on making a run for freedom. Nah, I’ll watch Blue Bloods reruns in my recliner. Until they haul me off to the funny farm.
I really can’t see Australia opening up to foreign tourists any time soon. The opening up internally has been disastrous, using out-of-date dubious modelling done before the current Omicron outbreak.
There is no appetite locally for opening borders to most overseas countries now, and with a federal election in the next few months, and one state one also, the bumbling Federal government will not risk going against public opinion.
1. Transfer your points, book 6 tickets
2. AC cancels flight, voila they now have thousands of your points.
The high levels of COVID in Australia make the border closure somewhat unnecessary and illogical. But logic and politics don’t mix well.
Why support a fascist country?
Why is this highlighted as an opportunity when we can’t travel there?
I mean at that point why not book all those empty hotel room in Japan in February too.
Australia won’t open until covid reaches zero.
In other words, it’ll never open. Ever.
Unless there’s been a recent change, only revenue business class ticket holders get access to AC’s Signature dining lounge, not award or upgrade flyers.
@DavidB – this was a change with the new Aeroplan program
@Mike – first, there are many readers who CAN travel there (readers in Australia who would fly to North America and back, readers with Australian residency, immediate family of Australians) and second I flag the *speculative* possibility that Australia could re-open to others, I made bookings for the Northern summer in hopes of this but did not transfer miles in order to do so.
Sigh…. I’ve been trying to contact AC for three weeks since they changed my flights for this summer and then Gary lets his readers know about the availability (which is fine since its been available for weeks, maybe months) and all the dates around my return are gone….. looks like an overnight in ORD for me….. I think any booking is speculative for northern hemisphere to southern hemisphere right now…. Gary maybe a post about how difficult it is for those of us without status to change our tickets right now…… My calls to AC, mostly they wont even put me on hold and those times I get on hold nothing…. not as bad as BA who just disconnects you after an hour but still frustrating…. those of us without status are at a severe disadvantage right now…. Anybody else with cardboard status finding it difficult to speak with an airline….
@Aaron
I know I shouldn’t waste a second of my time responding to your ridiculous, fact-free post, but I just have….
An absolute crap deal.
Thanks for the heads up! I scored 2 J tickets for 378k UA + $300 for May. Fingers crossed. We almost jumped on a coach deal years ago but decided it was too long a flight. haha
Considered and rejected. Flying via YVR adds hours to a journey that is already too long. And nobody wants miles stuck in Aeroplan where the rules (and program owner) change at the drop of a dime. The dates are also very limited around Xmas, which is the best time for most families to visit Australia. No thanks, I would rather transit Japan (which also has wide open space) or just about anywhere in Asia. Or wait for the nonstops from USA to open…
That said, it’s probably a heck of deal if you are retired and have more time than money, or you aren’t tied to school calendars and don’t mind visiting off-season.
Great flights via Vancouver! Easy Transfer, not much longer the from LAX, with less all of the Lax drama.
NEWS! you can visit Australia as of today, provided you are double vaccinated ! West Australia won’t be possible until March 3.
For those countries that did total lockdowns, I think it is going to take 6 months or so of nothing happening before I’m likely to consider traveling there again.